Why did IBM choose to announce the Personal System/2 on Thursday rather than on its preferred Tuesday? Two explanations are currently doing the rounds, the first being that the company is backing the machines up with an extravagant – $50m? – TV campaign in the US – featuring seven actors from the cast of MASH (Charlie Chaplin has been pensioned off), and Thursday night is TV Night on NBC over there because the network pumps out in quick succession a whole string of top-rated shows including The Bill Cosby Show, Cheers, and LA Law, and has recently added Spitting Image; the theory we prefer is that IBM was uncomfortable at the extent to which the announcement consisted of the most vaporous of vapourware, and if it had made the announcement on Tuesday, all the press would have appeared on All Fools’ Day.
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